Common Knowledge Extended Liner Notes
Seven Stolen Stars
Helen Bell

Communists throw all the best parties! A line that stuck in my mind from a film about Frida Kahlo. This was the premise behind this song. Part Bloomsbury Set, part sheer fantasy. A reflection of my association of leftwing politics with fabulosity and fun, rather than stereotyped soviet dreariness or SWP meeting boredom. Extends the “common knowledge” theme – “everyone knows” TD

The First Bonfire / Pillowfish
Helen Bell

Two tunes in odd meters, 7 and 5 respectively. The first is named after an initiation ceremony for a new allotment, and the second after a misheard reply when I asked someone what the time was. [Upon further questioning it was revealed to be ten to eleven in the morning. The only drug involved was a cup of tea.] We are named after the tune rather than vice versa. HB

These were recorded ‘live in the studio’ in a single take.

Addiction
Tom Drinkwater

When I smell the coffee something happens to my brain
It starts to motivate my limbs and overcomes the pain
I begin to fall and stumble my way up to the machine
Load and tamp and switch until the light comes on again

When I see the foaming crèma on the top of coffee black
And smell earthy aromas that put me back on track
I feel it from the opening sip starting to make me sick
But the singing of the neurons always keeps me coming back

I’m shaking and I’m nervous and I need to eat some food
I’m nauseous and I’m jumpy and my co-ordination’s screwed
But it’s hurting in a happy way and it just feels so good
I’m singing in the rain, I‘m dancing in the nude

Addiction, affliction, sometimes it’s even legal
Induction, corruption, some things are eternal

I’ve something now in common with Sherlock Holmes and Jimmy Page,
And Kurt Cobain although I hope it doesn’t reach that stage
You’ll say I‘m just a dilettante and I‘m not that close to the edge
So brew me up another cup and bring it to my cage

I can feel switches closing and rerouting in my mind
And the fuzzy feelings lifting and I am no longer blind
The maggots in my stomach insist the stuff be banned
Then the Java fairy manifests and waves his magic wand

It keeps me from depression and self pity and despair
It’s a celebrated ritual that thickly perfumes the air
It’s a palpitating nightmare, an exhilarating dare
It’s a lover with a flogger; it’s a pyrrhic sort of cure

This should be fairly self explanatory, at least to anyone with an espresso habit. Coffee is a very addictive drug, and I thought it was fun to overstate the case a little. Addiction is addiction, whatever it is to. I thought Helen’s fiddle part was quite appropriately Viennese coffee house in style - a touch 2nd Viennese school (Shönberg) in the verse and 1st Viennese school (Haydn) in the chorus. TD

The Ice Sculptor
Helen Bell

Behind the crowds in the struggling street a man was carving curves of ice
He was chiselling an angel from a melting diamond slice
Someone asked him why he did not carve from wood or mould from clay
When he knew the ice would run to water before the end of day.

He said, “Wood may last but it can’t reflect the sky
Clay may stay but it won’t seduce the eye
Ice only shines for one dragonfly day
So let it have its wings before it melts away”

So what are you building then, when at the close of every day
There’s nothing left to show and all your angels have dripped away?
You can’t sell puddles for a living, if you want my advice
Go and carve yourself a future instead of shaping ice.

He said, “Yesterday the future was the skill I have today
Tomorrow may bring finer ice on which my hands can play”
Ice only shines for one dragonfly day
So let it have its wings before it melts away

The angel was finished now and it stood gleaming and complete
And it melted all the scowls and frowns which went parading through the street
The sculptor said “We each of us have got a block of ice to use
So leave yours blank until tomorrow if that’s what you choose.”

He said “You’ve been wasting so much of your time
Standing there questioning what I do with mine”
Ice only shines for one dragonfly day
So let it have its wings before it melts away

A defence of performance art. Originally inspired by an ice sculptor who was effectively busking in the streets, it could just as easily be about a musical or dramatic performance in which there is no physical end-product. It was also partly a response to lots of people repeatedly asking me when I was going to get a Proper Job. HB

The World to Mend
Tom Drinkwater

I’ve had enough of falling down, of being pushed and dragged around
I’m tired of the whole facade, I want to end the sad charade

I’ve loved you all and while you’re gone, I’ve kept the flame alive alone
I’ve loved you all the time you’re here, I‘ve held to all the things that we hold dear

I’ll not be boxed in by your fear, you know that I’ll always be here
We have too much of life to lose, you don’t get to disapprove

This time you are going to help me up, this time we are all in it together
This time I’m not going to let you down, this time I’m making my skin like leather
This time its one for all and all for one, this time no-one gets away
This time you’ll work ‘til the job is done, this time I’m going to make you stay

And whoever that you choose, and whatever that he knows
We’ll go together far and near, a whiskey kiss and conversation clear

As you are and as she is, and as he will be with a kiss
The bickering and fear will end, enough, we have the world to mend

This time no-one gets to choose the money, this time we’re playing for our lives
This time no-ones leaving in a hurry, this time we’re all each other’s wives
This time we are dressed in morning joy, this time no-one’s driven out
This time there’s so much more to say, this time’s the ending of the drought

An insurgent joy is rising up, like blood like wine it fills my cup
It holds me and won’t be denied, it’s going to be a wild ride

This time you are going to help me up, this time no-one gets away
This time I’m not going to let you down, this time I’m going to make you stay
This time no-one gets to choose the money, this time we’re playing for our lives
This time no-ones leaving in a hurry, this time everyone survives

A manifesto song. (again!) This time I kept it ambiguous. It could be about a band, a relationship, a political party, a revolutionary group, a whole society. Or all those things could be the same thing really. Fundamentally it’s about an inclusive idea of solidarity, a rare concept in this time and place.

We incorporated Helen’s tune “The Milk White Turbot” into this song in what may have been our first act of compositional collaboration. The change of meter was just the lift that the song required. TD

The zouk and fiddle were recorded ‘live in the studio’ in a single take.

Cruel Sea
Tom Drinkwater (words Sadie Curlett)

I will go down to the sea
call your name where shore meets sky
carve your name in the black sands
with white pebbles I build a grave
for when you come back to me

I will wear the dress you picked for me
trailing cloth like hanging vines
I will walk barefoot on the cold rocks
until you come back to me
back from the cruel sea
back home with you holding me

I will wait here for you
waiting at the edge of the world
crouching where sky meets grey sea
trailing my hands in the cold foam
I will wait forever here
till the cold sea comes up for me
or until you come back to me

A break from the relentless idealism, this song is our version of the traditional much sung story of waiting by the sea for your lost lover. But with a darker edge, who is the grave for, and why? I quite enjoy the gender ambiguity too, although it’s quite normal in folk song for men to sing songs from the woman’s point of view and vice versa. The music is meant to be suggestive of waves…

Move Your Money
Tom Drinkwater

You can move your money, But you can’t move your body

You can buy from Amazon, invest offshore with Enron
On the markets you can speculate, let your empathy deteriorate
Don’t you think its funny that they let you move your money
They won’t let you move your body but they can buy your soul remotely

The call centre’s in India, the product is in China,
The profits go to Monaco, but you know that they won’t let you go.
I get coffee beans from Africa, and paper from Australia
I’m force fed software from the USA but I can’t elect el presidente

You can order it on Visa but you can’t go to live there
If your passport fits the reader you can visit for a breather
Only if you don’t stay too long, don’t get a job or sing a song
Don’t have a toke or tell a joke, they’ll kindly let you buy a Coke

If you don’t want to rock the axis they will let you pay your taxes
you gotta pay for the war toys, gotta bail out the oil boys,
If you’re feeling disenfranchised have a Pepsi and some freedom fries,
If you lack representation be consoled with the taxation.

If you get past immigration and they let you keep your pants on
You can stay till they accuse you of bombs or liking children too
Then if you’re lucky they’ll deport you, but don’t expect a trial too,
Unless you put it on your Visa, pay the fee unto the lawyer

Globalisation, or really capitalisation, of the world, has resulted in borders becoming completely open to movement of money, but still very closed to movements of people. Especially poor people. I can’t see any moral justification for any sort of border at all ever. It is entirely a mechanism for maintaining poverty. If you don’t want poor people moving into your rich country/town, first ask why you are richer than they are in the first place. TD

Hunting the Off Licence / Trip to Heligoland
Helen Bell

The first tune commemorates what sadly turned out to be a futile search for beverages before a gig; the second is named after a friend’s favourite place in the Shipping Forecast (now disappointingly renamed German Bight) which sounds rather exotic and exciting. It is actually a rapidly eroding island with a rather bloody history that is now a tax-exempt holiday resort with an economy almost entirely based on selling alcohol and tobacco to tourists. This sits a little uncomfortably with the fact that the Heligoland Tourist Board promotes it as a health resort. Having said all this, the tune is not really ‘about’ any of it; it just seemed like a good name for a new jig.

These were recorded ‘live in the studio’ in a single take.

She’s so Dark
Tom Drinkwater

She’s so dark, so dark, like the good night, like a dog’s bark
She’s so pale, so pale, like a parchment, or a salt sail
She’s so bleak, so bleak, like an old bone on the beach
She’s so warm, so warm, like the ocean, like a summer storm
She’s so cool, so cool, like a glass spoon, like a trout pool
She’s so black, so black, like an ember in a hemp sack
She’s so brown, so brown, like an oak beam, like an old sound
She’s so right, so right, smells like chocolate, tastes like marmite
She’s so wrong, so wrong, like a death wound, like a border song
She’s so hurt, so hurt, from the inside like dead Kurt
She’s so goth, so goth, like the burnt wing of a moth
She’s so strong, so strong, like an old scar ten years long

Fingerprints and Smudges
Tom Drinkwater

There was a poster behind the fridge, with tatty brittle edges
It’s torn faded and yellow, it has fingerprints and smudges,
fingerprints and smudges

It’s been forgotten in the corner since 1974
We found it when the house came down, to build a superstore,
to build the new mall

This fantastic faded paper proclaims a carnival of change
In coloured letters six inches tall, all the world to rearrange
Into something rich and strange

It’s considered common knowledge that the hope was an illusion
That light and love and rock and roll were a huge collective delusion,
A youthful indiscretion

But the winners write the histories, and it’s mostly turncoats help recall
I question if they understand, or were even there at all,
Were they truly there at all?

You thought the times were changing, but they never did
So you all sold out and got a job, and left the problems for your kids,
left the unsolved problems for the kids

The kids you should not have had are standing crowded in together
They’re just as foolish and confused as you were, but you had better weather
a lot more hope and better weather

You had the world, you had the wealth, you were prodigious,
but you didn’t have the knowledge
You lost the plot in a long war of attrition; you lost your conviction and your courage
All that’s left is fingerprints to salvage

Now it’s 30 years later, the alright kids are so much older
I’m still banging on the drums of peace, but the young ones are much colder
and the drums of war beat louder

Now it’s an old man’s revolution, and it won’t win the election
But I won’t get fooled again, and it’s time to take some action,
force a conscious resurrection

I’m repainting the poster, to pin its colours to the wall
A call to freedom written large, in letters six feet tall
Put the writing on the wall

I read somewhere that the standard of living and material security for the average person peaked in the mid seventies. (In the affluent west) Better in fact than any culture anywhere in the world at any time before or since. Of course this wealth and relative equality was achieved on the basis of rapid oil depletion, massive destruction of the natural environment, and exploitation of the third world. Nevertheless the baby boomer generation had more opportunities than anyone else has ever had. (Anyone who doubts this and thinks we are better off now should try buying a house on the average wage.)

Those people also had a lot of good ideas (or at least promoted some pre-existing ones), about freedom and fairness, and individuality within collective action. In fact the original revolutionary ideals: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. They also had a lot of fun with sex, drugs and rock’n’roll – before it all became totally corporatised.

They benefited from the peak of the economic boom caused by the discovery and rapid depletion of fossil fuels, and from the solidarity and socialist initiatives that were associated with recovering from the depression and the war (like the NHS) and somehow, for all that wealth and idealism and opportunity, managed to leave us a world that by and large is worse than it was in 1945. Sure we’ve won some personal/sexual freedoms, it’s not all bad, but what a wasted opportunity!

So, on one level this is just a song about blaming your parents generation for the world you find yourself landed with, but it’s more than that. There was a lot of hope about in the 60’s and 70’s, a feeling that ordinary people could both be free, and change the world for the better. Of course many of the actual attempts to do so were extraordinarily flawed or naïve, but at least they tried. Why did it stop? How can we make it start again? So far the generation and a bit since has done even worse.

We added harmonica and Hammond organ for 60’s verisimilitude. Can’t you just smell the flowers? (And the sweaty pot smoking hippies)